


Maybe Not the Answer He Wanted To Hear

by My_Alter_Ego



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Questions of molestation, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27280273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Alter_Ego/pseuds/My_Alter_Ego
Summary: Peter finds that he is morbidly curious about the time Neal spent in prison.
Relationships: Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	Maybe Not the Answer He Wanted To Hear

Peter and Neal had made the long trek up to Ossining today and, specifically, to Sing Sing, because they were on White Collar business. Peter had been told that an inmate was ready to divulge some information he had heard about an art heist back in the city, and the guy was willing to barter it for a break in his sentence. Peter insisted that his new CI come along because Neal could cut through any bullshit that may be coming out of this felon’s mouth, as well as spot a fellow con man a mile away.

Neal was quiet on the ride Upstate, and Peter couldn’t help but notice the way Neal hugged the wall on one side of the line on the corridor floor as they were escorted to an interrogation room in the prison. Peter assumed that Neal probably wasn’t aware of this peculiarity. His behavior was most likely an unconscious habit from his almost four years behind bars traveling this same route, day in and day out. It hadn’t been that long since Peter had plucked him from his tiny cell so he could swan around Manhattan in another former criminal’s borrowed suits and hats.

The meeting was brief and to the point. Neal asked the right questions, leaving it for Peter to investigate the inmate’s answers before any deal was hammered out with the Department of Corrections. The ride back to the city started out just as quietly as earlier.

“I guess being back there wasn’t a walk in the park for you,” Peter tried to start a conversation to get a bead on Neal’s quiescent mood, which was definitely out of character for his usually talkative partner.

“Nope—no fond memories,” was Neal’s terse answer.

“Well, it was your own fault, you know,” Peter answered, as if he felt he needed to defend himself for putting a convicted forger in prison.

“Right!” was Neal’s even shorter answer, which was getting Peter nowhere.

“How bad was it?” a now subtler handler asked softly.

“Why do you want to talk about it?” Neal growled. “It happened to me, not you.”

Now, a cold hand gripped Peter’s gut, actually punched it, was a more apt description. It was an “Aha” moment, and not in a good way. “Neal, were you scared or intimidated by someone while you were inside?”

“Yeah, like the whole prison population, Peter,” Neal answered bitterly. “Sing Sing isn’t exactly home to college fraternities holding keggers with panty raids on their minds. Get the picture?”

Peter didn’t want to go this route, but he found he had to know. “Neal, did someone, or maybe more than a someone, take advantage of you but you never reported it?”

Neal barked out a sarcastic laugh. “C’mon, Peter, have the balls to just ask me if I agreed to be somebody’s bitch in order to survive.”

“Okay, I will. Were you ever raped while you were incarcerated?”

Neal rasped out a parody of another laugh. “If I was, just what were you going to do about it, Peter? Were you going to swoop in like some white knight to defend my tainted honor? Aw, I’m touched. That’s really very sweet.”

“I could have demanded that you be removed immediately from gen pop,” Peter said firmly, ignoring Neal’s sarcasm.

“And then what, Peter? Spend the rest of my sentence marooned in protected segregation and locked down? I would have gone mad,” Neal retorted.

“I’m just saying that I could have removed you from the danger,” Peter began helplessly before being interrupted by the antagonistic passenger in his car.

“Well, _Partner_ , I’m only going to say this once, and then I’m going to refuse to talk about prison ever again,” Neal said in a firm voice. “I was not molested in any way because, thanks to Mozzie, protection money reached the right hands, month after dreary month. That kept the horny jackals off my back as well as other parts of my anatomy. Ergo, I never had to worry about dropping the soap in the shower. So, that’s the end of a very boring story!”

“I kept in touch with the warden, you know,” Peter said almost meekly. “I did worry about you being so young and so …”

“Vulnerable?” Neal finished the sentence.

“Not exactly what I was going to say, but vulnerable works, too,” Peter agreed.

“And just so _you_ know, I never intend to feel that way again because I’m never going back there.”

“That’s a positive attitude,” Peter agreed. “Staying on the straight and narrow is a good thing.”

“I never said those words, Peter—that’s your incessant mantra,” Neal replied woodenly. “I just said that I’m never going back to prison ever again!”

Suddenly, the way Neal framed his answer was not exactly what a worried handler wanted to hear.


End file.
